John Morison Copeland

“ It was a bold scheme, almost a reckless one, in that pioneer age, to link up Sarnia, Ont., with Portland, Me., via Toronto and Montreal, and to do so with a roadbed of such permanence that its standards have never been appreciably changed since. The railroad builders of those early days had faith in Canada, a faith that might shame some of those living in a more modern era.
“As a pioneer road the Grand Trunk is entitled to—even if it has not always received—the fullest measure of sympathy and encouragement from the Canadian people. ”

“ At no period in the world’s history have those fundamentals of a stable, social structure—morals, fidelity and sympathy—been burdened with more significance to humanity than at present and in alluding to the strengthening bonds which link three Anglo-Saxon nations, it would seem not inopportune to dwell on the characteristics of a gentleman, a Briton who was highly endowed with those basic virtues and who, in passing, left their indelible impress on his personal relations and throughout a long life of active railway experience in England, Canada and United States. ”

“ Warehouse and track facilities play a part in the scheme of convenience, and that indefinite quantity, sentiment, colors calculations, though shifty as smoke. Unsettled claims occasionally rile the temper and switch a lot of business to the lynx-eyed competitor who watches while he works. Friendly, but contending factions, lock horns for the haul of a single carload. San Francisco and Vancouver agents, acting in concert with their confreres at Winnipeg, Halifax or Hamilton, keep the wires sizzling. ”

“ Those who invested their money in the enterprise have had to be content with meagre returns financially, and a large consciousness of public service, if that was of comfort to them.
“It is well that the Canadian people should not forget the factors that have helped them along towards nationhood. The sixty-sixth anniversary of the Grand Trunk should be an occasion for a little thought as to the deserts of that fine old railroad system, an honorable patriotic corporation that has been the victim of one-half the railway legislation not only of the Federal House but of most of the Provinces.” ”

“ Marketing the jubilant flag pole and Christmas tree is a comparatively unhackneyed commercial twist not overdone and if discontented dwellers in old Ontario, seigneurial Quebec or the world at large, like that prospect or court a change from brick and asphalt to the silent places, opportunity beckons to them from amidst the serried ranks of raw material swarming over the hilly, rock-ribbed areas of Temagami, the dales of Temiskaming and Porcupine’s budding principality of golden promise. ”

“ Peter, Montreal, Quebec, stands a spacious stone castle, the handsome, towering Canadian Pacific Railway hive, and verily, it is alive with endeavor and swarms with the spirit of enterprise. Inhabited chiefly by king bees—and a few queens—this host of 2000 flaunt no iron crosses for inefficiency and here drones have no place. ”

“ UNITED STATES RAILWAY INTERESTS IN CANADA John Bull’s eldest daughter, Canada—recently eulogized as his fairest by the Honorable William H. Taft—is no laggard in recognizing opportunity as it ebbs and flows in the great, scientific game of trade. Like our wide-awake neighbor to the south, she inherits from commercial and speculative England the bartering instinct, and is willing enough to emulate, in a modified way, cousin Columbia’s obeisances to the goddess of commerce. The goddess, aforesaid, has been an active dame and most aggressive throughout North America during the past half century. ”

“ Starting on a few calls some pleasant morning with the outside atmosphere exhilarating, if your initial visit happens on one of those considerate, business gentlemen who can devote three to thirty minutes of his time to your mission, and concluding the X.Y.Z. road might be worse, promises a share of the traffic he has offering, you usually approach the balance of the day’s duties with optimism. ”

“ The growth in harmonious intercourse—fostered by the advent into United States prior to 1900 of one in every six persons born in Canada—has derived stimulus from the dependable characteristics of those who have, in the sifting, come within the arc of the limelight. These resolute knights of throttle, lever and key—ex-Canadians of stamina and discernment in railroad building, operation, traffic and finance—rank high as participators in the safeguarding of large and complicated interests. ”

“ During five decades since, there has been work to do in United States of America and worthy men to do it. Uncle Sam has no commendable physical qualification if you concede him not two most perceptive normal optics together with an eye in the back of his head. In nepotism an unbeliever, with scant indulgence for clannishness and caste, this allegorical personage suffered all applicants to joust with his stalwart native sons and demonstrate their fitness to maintain the dignity of labor—the basic agency in creating his country’s present commercial pre-eminence. ”

“ However, the officials of every railroad company from the president, traffic manager and “G.F.A.”, down the ladder to the journal oilers, make recompense, court the freight cars and strive mightily for the privilege of transporting their variegated contents and these are the men who make them make millions. It is a game with far reaching ramifications, a contest of competitors where brains and dispatch, service, sentiment and cold figures diversify the play. ”

“ As the newcomer’s eyes view the sea of tapering masts—shorn of drapery in winter—and the springtimes’ green undergrowth crowning summits and slopes, which in that corner of the Canadian hinterland undoubtedly conceal unconjectured lodes of mineral wealth, his brain tabulates new and fascinating impressions respecting this vast heritage and pregnant land of the future. ”

“ It is, however, only with the searchlights of peace, of barter and trade and commercial expansion, which spell security and comfort for mankind, that the “C.P.R.” sweeps the horizons, feels the universe’s pulse and keeps in touch through the medium of the electric spark, with the aspirations of the world’s brown, yellow and Caucasian children. ”

“ From the pinnacle position in the steeple, ably filled by a shrewd, democratic nobleman, down the scale through a labyrinth of departments to the youngster affixing postage and dreaming of the Vice-Presidency, every official and employee in that busy headquarters of the greatest transportation corporation within the world’s ken, plays his part in the drama “making hay while the sun shines.” ”

“ A Owing to exigencies of the war, and responding to a law enforced by W. G. McAdoo, Director General of Railroads, all United States railway agencies have again been withdrawn from Canada.
Necessity has slowly convinced numerous hesitating shippers and travellers that the canvass of those United States railroads, looking to Canada for business, has more behind it than a cloven hoof; that sometimes an extra string to one’s bow is a really effective precautionary measure. ”

“ Mankind in thousands would be without occupations, communication and the written word from the world outside would cease in three-quarters of the affected zone: again the over night journey to grist mills would resume, cattle be herded to market, the fruits of the earth would wither on the vine and the travelling public—wont to thoughtlessly grumble at imagined discrepancies in the time table—would submissively fall back on the tri-weekly stage. ”

“ He has been in the business from early boyhood on the Grand Trunk, Great Western and D. & M., understands telegraphy, and is familiar with the duties of the different departments. With great purity and gentleness of character, he combines a quiet force and decision which has commanded the esteem and respect of railway men, and his knowledge of detail and love of system, give him great influence with his subordinates, who are ardently attached to him. Perhaps, in the future, when some of your faithful ones drop out, you may want Callaway. ”

“ Nowadays, discriminating tourists, individually or in parties, the banker speculator, merchant prince in his own car, and commercial man having business in Europe, at the Pacific Coast or in Manitoba, more and more frequently requests that the New York or Chicago gateway should figure in their itinerary to permit enjoyment of the unsurpassed service and scenic environment of those routes which justly deserve the public’s endorsement. ”

“ Assuming that you desire to introduce or further exploit a worthy service and route, publicity should be the first vital consideration. In this propaganda who can better assist you to reach the world and his wife than the rank and file, than those men and youths of high and low degree whom you meet when you occasionally call and who, during your absence, are always in immediate contact with buyers and the stream of enquiring public, alert and receptive, like a big league star playing close to the third sack. ”

“ In more than one tight pinch “U.S.” railways have come to the fore, furnishing an expeditious alternative when shipper and consignee have been stewing over congested yards, crippled motive power, notorious scarcity of cars, strike and snow disadvantages which trouble every line sooner or later and which are not unknown to the men piloting the Canadian railway interests to success.
Twenty-two foreign railroads, nine operating in the east and central States, and thirteen western companies, each maintain one to six passenger and commercial offices in this country. ”

“ One energetic but luckless individual, with boundary stakes in earth, had them uprooted and tossed aside by a speculator’s hireling the moment he headed to the registry office; another collapsed from exhaustion and laid prone in the bush as the strong trod over his body and aspirations and still a third poor devil lost a pronounced advantage by falling, horse and rider, into a quagmire at the roadside, and all because there lies side by side beneath the earth’s surface silver sidewalks and blighted hopes. ”

“ Eight hundred carloads a year would be, according to some men’s estimate, a modest shewing, but, after all, conditions considered, it is a tidy, “found” business in and out of Canada for an individual “U.S.” line to secure or relinquish. I have known a single railroad’s catch in Ontario to exceed, on several occasions, three hundred carloads a month, 95 per cent. of this tonnage going to Manitoba and British Columbia destinations, the fresh fruit receiving exceptional attention and other commodities making scheduled runs to Winnipeg well within five days, and to Vancouver in twelve days’ time. ”

“ Of all people needing the experience of travel, the ticketing agent who directs others on their journeys should be first to possess that advantage.
Dispensing to these gentlemen few promises and religiously observing those is a strong undercurrent in shaping your course. Unfailing attention to reservation requests, prompt news of the whereabouts of specific shipments, and early notification of upward tariff revisals, &c., &c., are assets that help forge a friendship out of which springs new business, which a “fourflusher” or thoughtless one is prone to overlook after his final handshake. ”

“ Feeling that they are an integral part of a gigantic organization, they play tick, tack, toe with $153,000,000 in rolling stock and participate with sincerity in the annual round-up of 30,000,000 tons of freight that require 95,000 cars of divers shapes to transport, in addition to moving 16,000,000 passengers for $30,000,000 necessitating a string of equipment that would reach forty miles from Toronto to Hamilton. 2255 locomotives pull this traffic. When all hands and the cooks on the dining cars are intensely occupied in harvesting the golden honey, then is the management in clover. ”

“ At such anticipated and informal conventions every one present is urged to express opinions. Traffic matters are viewed from different angles, the solitary agent who thinks himself and agency discriminated against, learns the larger reason for local inconvenience, outside representatives obtain a “close up” inspection of the chiefs in action and the plan, as a fixture, would become a sound, progressive measure as well as a distinctive advantage to the esprit de corps of any transportation company’s staff. ”

“ Though crudely equipped, the road was nevertheless, a startling and welcome innovation for abbreviating space. The Grand Trunk Railway had not yet been built and the saddle horse and coach were the only substitutes for pedestrianism. Picture, if you can, a journey inside a two teamed springless stage, tediously winding westward past bear haunt, swamp and river; for instance, over the historic, old military road from Kingston. It must have been a hunter’s paradise. ”

“ The fruitfulness of the mission of a transportation company with $1,038,074,983.26 of assets, with a property investment of $538,510,563.24 and annual gross earnings of $152,389,334.95 must be well-nigh incalculable, especially to a democratic country—to the last great west, with so vast an area and promising though veiled future. The Canadian Pacific Railway is heavy with import and deeply interlaced with the potentialities of our own Canada. ”

“ At the stroke of twelve a ziz-zagging procession of flickering lights born by all manner of men, stretching from Cobalt three miles to the famous, now naked Gillies Timber Limit, broke into motion at the double quick. Ahead of them were twelve square miles—4,000 acres—or twenty acres of undiagnosed area of rock each for the lucky two hundred eager, excited prospectors and adventurers who might stake, find ore and register for $10 at Haileybury first, and thus perchance, stumble on a king’s ransom. Ordinarily, the journey on steam coach costs Ten Cents. ”

“ When the public magnifies the cash returns from ticket sales and freight traffic it has not an accurate conception of the immense sums paid out annually by the railway companies for the adjustment of even small claims. Traffic Manager Adam Scott of the F. W. Woolworth Company, with eighty-five stores in Canada, was instrumental in having authorized during the past fiscal year $16,000 in vouchers issued to write off small claims on less than carload shipments of glassware and crockery. ”

“ The national character of Van Horne’s project and the prestige of the sponsors of this great pioneer, western Canadian line attracted to it the major portion of freight traffic which had been moving via other channels, and by demanding the privilege of preferential passenger rates, based on newness, geographical position and inaccessibility, the patronage of the “Homeseeker” was diverted, practically en masse, from United States lines which had enjoyed the pickings unmolested for eight years. ”

“ Here it is that Uncle Sam’s sweltering Southerners and their Northern cousins migrate with the birds in ever increasing numbers to fish the virgin streams, to sense exhaling aromatic fragrance and be soothed by the solitude and majesty of the wilderness which appeals more and more to each contemplative one who would elude the madding crowd as he jogs adown the irregular pathway of life. ”